I'm probably at least partially if not wholly to blame for that, with the
"Star Trek had good visualizations for different alien races' starship
designs." Where that related to Traveller was my wish to do more along
those lines. Since Traveller had common starship design rules it was
harder to say "Federation uses phasers, Klingons use disruptors, Romulans
use plasma weapons," so any differences had to be a lot less
deterministic.
I made the Hiver ships shoeboxes because it was a clear way of saying,
"we're not going down there, we're sending bots and Ithklur." Most of
everything else was just artistic embellishment of common forms, Aslan
being swoopy, Vargr being spiky, etc.
And then there was the clear violation of "what it would really be." With
everything beyond a certain level covered with stealthy EM emissions
management there would be no such thing as ship markings or paint schemes,
except that was no fun. People like Osprey books with color profiles and
there's no way to do that when a ship could be an "Eat at Joe's" marquee
one second, a countershaded starfield the next, and the family coat of
arms after that. Since saying "ships have paint schemes" was more fun and
Traveller had already said things like there being traditional pirate
color schemes, we stuck with something that made no sense and tried not to
talk about it.
> I've indulged you guys long enough. Please stop with all of the Star Wars,
> Star Trek, Hollywood, this director sucks, this movie was great but that
> one sucks, etc. etc. stuff. Please take it off-list. I believe that you
> all have your each other's emails by now.
>
> \_/
> DED
> TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>
>
>
"Star Trek had good visualizations for different alien races' starship
designs." Where that related to Traveller was my wish to do more along
those lines. Since Traveller had common starship design rules it was
harder to say "Federation uses phasers, Klingons use disruptors, Romulans
use plasma weapons," so any differences had to be a lot less
deterministic.
I made the Hiver ships shoeboxes because it was a clear way of saying,
"we're not going down there, we're sending bots and Ithklur." Most of
everything else was just artistic embellishment of common forms, Aslan
being swoopy, Vargr being spiky, etc.
And then there was the clear violation of "what it would really be." With
everything beyond a certain level covered with stealthy EM emissions
management there would be no such thing as ship markings or paint schemes,
except that was no fun. People like Osprey books with color profiles and
there's no way to do that when a ship could be an "Eat at Joe's" marquee
one second, a countershaded starfield the next, and the family coat of
arms after that. Since saying "ships have paint schemes" was more fun and
Traveller had already said things like there being traditional pirate
color schemes, we stuck with something that made no sense and tried not to
talk about it.
> I've indulged you guys long enough. Please stop with all of the Star Wars,
> Star Trek, Hollywood, this director sucks, this movie was great but that
> one sucks, etc. etc. stuff. Please take it off-list. I believe that you
> all have your each other's emails by now.
>
> \_/
> DED
> TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>
>
>